512 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



just without my window. Its song is one of the sweetest among our native 

 birds. Giraud described it as " excelling the finest tones of the trained 

 canary." Chapman calls the song " mellow and flutelike, loud enough to 

 be heard several hundred yards, an intricate warble past imitation or 

 description and rendered so admirably that I never hear it without feeling 

 an impulse to applaud." I am forced to believe that the naming crest 

 of the kinglet has the function not only of charming a prospective mate, 

 but also of striking terror to the heart of rivals and antagonists. One 

 morning while I was bird hunting among the spruces, I came upon a kinglet 

 which was warbling so madly as to attract my attention, and I discovered 

 him with his neck stretched up, and his flaming crest erected, as his notes 

 were delivered, like a flame of fire from the top of his head. He slowly 

 made his way toward the top of a limb where a kinglet, evidently a male 

 but younger and less vigorous, was cowering as if afraid of annihilation 

 and yet unable to flee from its approaching antagonist. This bird, at 

 any rate, had a ruby crest, although it was not so brilliant as that of the 

 other male, and at the beginning of the contest he sang a song which I sup- 

 posed to be uttered only by the males. When his antagonist approached 

 within a few inches, he finally dropped from the limb and flew away. The 

 behavior of the flaming crest during this contest assured me that it aided 

 both the warlike attitude of the singer and his wonderful song in con- 

 vincing his rival of greater superiority. 



Polioptila caerulea caerulea (Linnaeus) 

 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 



Plate 104 



Motacilla caerulea Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. 12. 1766. 1:337 

 Culicivora coerulea DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 109, fig. 126 

 Polioptila caerulea caerulea A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 357. 

 No. 751 



polioptila, Gr., gray-feather; caerulea, Lat., blue 



Description. Upper parts grayish blue; under parts grayish white; tail 

 black, the outer feathers mostly white, the second partly white and the 



